WILL THE METEORIC THEORY ACCOUNT FOR THE PHENOMENA OF VARIABLE AND TEMPORARY STARS? Having shown that meteor-asteroids are diffused in vast quantities throughout the universe; that according to eminent physicists the solar heat is produced by the precipitation of such matter on the sun's surface; and that Leverrier has found it necessary to introduce the disturbing effect of meteoric rings in order fully to account for the motion of Mercury's perihelion; we now propose extending the meteoric theory to a number of phenomena that have hitherto received no satisfactory explanation. VARIABLE AND TEMPORARY STARS. No theory as to the origin of the sun's light and heat would seem to be admissible unless applicable also to the sidereal systems. Will the meteoric theory explain the phenomena of variable and temporary stars? "It has been remarked respecting variable stars, that in passing through their successive phases, they are subject to sensible irregularities, which have not hitherto been reduced to fixed laws. In general they do not always attain the same maximum brightness, their fluctuations being in some cases very considerable. Thus, according to Argelander, the variable star in _Corona Borealis_, which Pigott discovered in 1795, exhibits on some occasions such feeble changes of brightness, that it is almost impossible to distinguish the maxima from the minima by the naked eye; but after it has completed several of its cycles in this manner, its fluctuations all at once become so considerable, that in some instances it totally disappears. It has been found, moreover, that the light of variable stars does not increase and diminish symmetrically on each side of the maximum, nor are the successive intervals between the maxima exactly equal to each other."--_Grant's History of Physical Astronomy_, p. 541.